FDA Considers Redefining Chocolate

shewfig writes "The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining 'chocolate' to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as 'chocolatey' and 'chocolate-flavored.' The change was requested by the industry group Chocolate Manufacturers of America. Leading the resistance to this change is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, with significant grass-roots support from the Candyblog. The FDA is taking consumer comments until April 25. Here is the FDA page on the proposed change, which oddly enough does not say what the proposed change is."

Comments

Oh, great

[nmb3000]

As if American chocolate wasn't bad enough as it is...

Re:Oh, great

[246o1]

Though I am not a chocolate freak, I have to assume that there are American chocolatiers who make fine products. Just because most people in America are satistfied with non-gourmet products doesn't mean that those products aren't out there.

I am someone who like pizza and beer, and I know there are lots of good pizzas and beers to be found out there. Of course, everyone's definition of a good beer is different, but I've come across a lot of really good stuff in America, from John Harvard's house brews in Boston to Sierra Nevada and Anchor Steam in Frisco.

And apparently there are some good American wines out there, though I don't really give a shit about wine. I believe something called Screaming Eagle has quite a good reputation and is from California.

As for the FDA decision, well, I'm all for stricter standards in food naming, generally speaking, even when it's a luxury food.

Re:Oh, great

[kklein]

Um, Northern California is one of the world's most-renowned wine regions. And the American microbrew explosion has been producing international-awards-earning beers for well over a decade. And pizza IS American food (as in, it is not the same as the original Italian food from which it is derived). And there is a growing number of excellent cheese companies in America. I'd be the first to admit that American-made chocolate (as in, they MADE the chocolate, from scratch, instead of just buying it from France and repackaging it--cough No-Ka cough) is nothing to write home about (unless the text of the missive was "It sucks."), but seriously, American gourmet has come a very long way in recent decades. Just, you know, to be clear... I know it was a joke and all, but... You know.

Re:Oh, great

[dwater]

> What you don't seem to realize is you can only have food invented once...and then built on.
>
> Anything I listed there might have been of influence from elsewhere, but it has a different spin.
> If that makes it "bad" in your mind, then fine. Pizza, as we know it, is based on an italian dish,
> it's still American. You can say we didn't invent the concept of dough baked with toppings, but neither did the
> italians.

Indeed, as my (Chinese) wife keeps reminding me :)

I'm not sure of the validity of your claim though - how far back do you go? Can you really 'invent' something like food? Like I said, how different does it need to be before it becomes original?

I haven't noticed any difference between American Apple Pie and that I know from England. Predictably, it's somewhat more sugary, and a little different 'style' on the top, but it's too simple to be very different. Similarly with pizza - how different can it be?

How Chocolate is made:

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

From the CMA's How Chocolate is Made page:

The main ingredient used to make chocolate is cocoa beans.

Wonder if they're planning on changing that?

FDA "accepting" comments

[grasshoppa]

The FDA is taking consumer comments until April 25.

After which time they will toss them out and make a re$pon$ible deci$ion.

Re:FDA Attempt to Regulate Vitamins, Herbs as "Dru

[TodMinuit]

Chinese medicine (herbs, acupuncture, etc.) has been around for thousands of years. People have been curing themselves long before Big Pharma pushed all of their drugs on us.

Couple hundred years ago, draining blood was considered a cure for just about anything. Lets bring it back. Next time you have a headache, slit your wrists.

God, you "all natural" medicine freaks are about as bad as those Scientologist.

Re:There is already crud in the chocolate.

[Razed By TV]

Over the last decade or two they have snuck palm oil in, and sometimes even wax, and most consumers didn't notice. I noticed the wax. It's called Hershey's.

Real Chocolate: Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Dark

[SpecialAgentXXX]

I absolutely stay away from the Big Corporate chocolate: Hershey's, Cadbery's, etc. It's all shit. High Fructose Corn Syrup and other crap in there. Ever had fine, European chocolate? The taste and texture is so much better.

There is a healthy and damn tasteful alternative to "corporate chocolate": Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Fine Artisan Dark Chocolate. I buy the 70% and 100% Cacao bars. You can really taste the cacao beans in the 70% but it's not completely bitter. The 100% takes a bit getting used to but once you've enjoyed these high quality chocolates, the "corporate chocolate" tastes like the shit that it is. I buy these bars at Whole Foods Market.

Re:FDA Attempt to Regulate Vitamins, Herbs as "Dru

[CosmeticLobotamy]

This is very important. The Big Pharmaceutical corporations have been trying to get natural medicine banned for years. Instead of taking herbs, vitamins, minerals, and other natural and very inexpensive remedies, Big Pharma wants to drug everyone.

You can mix dandelions and dog spit in a jar and sell it as a cure for baldness and impotence as long as you put a tiny thing on the bottom of the screen that says it's not intended to treat or diagnose anything. 95% of the herbal medicine market is an obvious scam. Thank God they're finally trying to do something about it. It drives me crazy watching those damn commercials. If I want a placebo for my erectile dysfunction, I'll eat a bull penis like anyone sensible would.

Re:There is already crud in the chocolate.

[espressojim]

Some of us refuse to go lower than Valrhona, usually in the 60-70% cocoa, with Dark Chocolate Noir Orange 64% Cocoa being our favorite (purchased in 1/2 lb bars.)

Why eat shitty chocolate when you can have good stuff? My SO finds that if we buy crappy chocolate, she just eats more of it and isn't satisfied. Good chocolate like the above satisfies her in an ounce or two (or three) serving size, so she eats less and enjoys more.

Re:This...

[CosmeticLobotamy]

For those who haven't read the book, the message is: WHO FUCKING CARES? IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU IMAGINE YOUR TAX MONEY SHOULD BE PAYING FOR?

Abso-fricking-lutely. When I buy chocolate, I want to know that if someone wraps dog feces in aluminum foil, they can't say, "No, that's what we call chocolate. No refunds, you already ate three-quarters of it." Enforced accurate labeling and definitions is absolutely what I want the government to be doing.

Re:FDA Attempt to Regulate Vitamins, Herbs as "Dru

[Moridineas]

What crazy ass world do you live in?!

The world before modern medicine was a pretty shitty place if you got sick. Sure, there are local herbs etc that have been used--with HIGHLY varying success--in every part of the world, forever. This is as true of America and Europe than it is of China, though I take your obsession with China means you're "one of those" who think we can look east for all our answers, and believe this with near religious fervor. Do you HONESTLY believe that "Chinese herbs" have a better track record than Western medicine... REALLY?!

Vitamins--PURE NATURAL VITAMNS (that means they're good, right?)--can at most cause a "tummyache" you claim. Let's see... this is all from a VERY quick google.

Overdoses of...
Vitamin A -- "can lead to liver damage, hair loss, blurred vision and headaches."
Vitamin B3 (niacin) -- "Niacin can have life-threatening acute toxic reactions" (wikipedia)
Vitamin D -- "can cause the buildup of calcium deposits that can interfere with the functioning of muscles, including heart tissue"

Ok, so you admitted diarrhea, nausea, upset stomach etc as vitamin sideeffects, from the list above we can add liver damage, and in some cases death. Well dang, what a SHOCK, those are almost the exact possible side effects you listed as coming from BIG SCARY PHARMA!!!

How ludicrous can you get. Really, I would think slashdotters should be able to be a little more questioning of things...

Incidentally... tobacco.. natural, bad DRUG. Marijuana? Natural drug. Alcohol? Natural drug. I think it's safe to say that natural things can have bad side effects, and can be called "drugs," friend..

Re:FDA Attempt to Regulate Vitamins, Herbs as "Dru

[Michael Woodhams]

The multi-billion dollar "Big Pharmaceutical corporations" are evil, lying and care for nothing but profit, whereas the multi-billion dollar "alternative medicines" industry is love, truth and fluffy bunnies?

How about Matthias Rath? He has convinced many in the South African government that AIDS is not caused by HIV, AIDS should be treated by vitamin supplements (which he just happens to sell) and antiretroviral medicines are a worse than useless, and advocating their use is genocide.

AIDS is killing 900 people per day in South Africa. A sizable fraction of those deaths can be laid directly at the door of "alternative medicine" in general, and the South African government and Rath in particular.

Big Pharma need someone to stand over them with a big stick to try to keep them honest. So do alternative medicine peddlers. The difference is that, occasionally, the big stick gets used on Big Pharma, but the snake-oil salesmen opperate with impunity in Alternative Medicine, playing Russian Roulette with other people's lives for their own profit.

Don't ban the 'remedies' - but do ban the lies and unsupported wishful-thinking published about them.

Re:FDA Attempt to Regulate Vitamins, Herbs as "Dru

[bogjobber]

The Chinese, and others, have been using herbs since recorded history. Their track record is substantially better than today's drugs.

Really? I was under the impression that today's life spans are remarkably longer and medicine substantially more effective than not only anything in recorded history, but definitely more than so-called "natural" medicine you see nowadays.

What are the warnings on herbs and vitamins? None!

That's because the FDA doesn't regulate herbs and vitamins, which is where the requirement for listing adverse side effects comes from. If all of a sudden the FDA stopped regulating pharmaceutical drugs, would you somehow think they were better because of a lack of warnings? Of course not.

Even though you're throwing evolution around in your argument, you obviously don't understand a goddamn thing about science. We are not "f'ing" with mother nature. We are fixing the system. Our evolution is not perfect. There is no such thing as "Mother Nature". You are a complete fucking idiot. Herbal healing is just another long line of ideas that claim that science is going too far and we need to resort to the traditional ways of thinking, be it Christian Science, acupuncture, or any number of other bullshit ideologies.

The only way to know the truth of how drugs affect our bodies is through science. I know that there is scientific evidence for specific herbs' uses in medicine, and that's fine. Herbs certainly have valid uses. But to claim (as you seem to be doing) that traditional herbal medicine is superior to modern medicine simply because of some adverse side effects and lobbying power by pharmaceutical companies is to ignore nearly the entire body of scientific study on medicine! You can't cherry-pick which scientific ideas you want to accept, simply because some conflict with your pre-conceived view of the world.

If you're going to try and be conservative at least extend the effort to remove any and all references to scientific ideas from your post. That's what the "smart" conservatives do. I wish I could find language to explain the contempt I feel for your ideas. No matter how venomous my words may seem they will not project the absolute hatred I have for whoever has convinced you that this bullshit is anything remotely resembling the truth.

Re:EU has much higher standards for chocolate

[donscarletti]

Yes, cochineal comes from beetles, the same place it has come from and been safely consumed by humans for centuries. Would you prefer to drink some synthetic petrochemical dye with possibly some unknown properties than something that has come from a harmless animal? People are always going to dye food and Cochineal extract is non-toxic, non-carcinogenic and causes extremely few allergies, why not use the stuff?

Way too Late...

[tempest69]

Unfortunatly, that peanut butter has been changed too. Peanut oil is expensive, so it is removed from peanut butter and replaced with soy/corn/canola/motor oil (oops motor oil is too expensive.)

so try and replace peanut butter with Peanut-Vegetable Margarine and then try to stomach it..double points if both use olestra.

Storm

SunnyD isn't orange juice.... ORLY? YARLY!!

[Dogtanian]

Have some SunnyD fruit cocktail! Made with real fruit juice*! *5% fruit juice from concentrates They might not be able to get away with calling Sunny Delight itself "fruit juice" in the UK (nor, I suspect from your phrasing, in the US either), but that didn't stop countless stupid parents buying it in the deluded belief that it was anyway, probably because it was sold in the chilled section.

There was a huge "scandal" about it when Sunny Delight was popular here in the late 1990s and all of a sudden it was all over the papers when someone realised "OMG!!!! IT'S NOT REAL JUICE, IT'S JUST SQUASH!!!!11111". Like, you don't say.

(Then there was even more scandal when there were reports of kids turning yellow through drinking the stuff. I know it's crap, but how much of the damn stuff were these parents feeding their kids?)

I hate all those crappy "juice drinks" that come in fruit-juice like packaging, but contain (at best) 25-50% fruit juice, with the rest made up from citric acid, sugar and God-knows-what. For what it is, it's fine, but I'm willing to bet that they're designed to fool countless morons into thinking they're fruit juice (and that they succeed).

Re:SunnyD isn't orange juice.... ORLY? YARLY!!

[arth1]

Here in the US, Minute Maid Light Lemonade, Mango Tropical and Raspberry Passion "juices" all contain 3% fruit juice. In some other countries, you're not allowed to call it juice unless it's 100% juice, and not allowed to put the name of the fruit first unless it's the main ingredient.
One thing the US totally lacks is consumer protection.

Chocolate here is waxy and a far cry from what Europeans think of as chocolate to begin with. Even the horrible Cadbury chocolates are miles from the wax tablets that Hershey and other US companies foist on US consumers. And even if you try to buy a European brand, it's most likely remade to an American recipe, presumably to save money because Americans can't tell the difference anyhow. US produced Godiva, for example, is (like almost all US chocolate) mostly made with corn syrup instead of sugar.
It's quite telling that Americans consider "Lindt" a gourmet brand, when it's one of the worst commercial produced chocolates in Europe.